forget smoking being good or bad. is it not our right to smoke if we choose to . people have been smoking for centuries in most places . people have the right to choice so shouldnt the landlords of bars, clubs and resteraunts and bussinesses be able to say yes or no there is also a plan to ban smoking from parks aswell . THE question at hand is there anyway to fight this without violance I think there must be some sort of cival or human law to for[ lack of a better] word stop this . IT MUST BE violating either our human or cival rights. i personally think a lot of people are going to get hurt through this

the only people that may 'hurt' are smokers...worth it though. there are alot of things that we are not allowed to do for various reasons, people must now accept that smoking is one of them. the smoking ban is a blanket ban, so in that respect landlords of any of these places are definately unable to say yes or no, unless they want to incurr a healthy fine!i think, in order to pass this legislislation the 'law' will have been analysed fully, these things don't just get passed overnight.as for banning smoking in parks, if public areas such as parks contain alot of people...especially in the summer months then there is a significant risk of passive smoking. therefore to ban smoking in places such as this is, in my opinion, fully justified.

I don't smoke and I don't care to lose my companions in the middle of every conversation because of their need to go outside and smoke. Kirsten: I don't think the designers of this legislation are very practical people. They have created enormous problems with noise, congestion and mess in the streets that used to be contained indoors, to say nothing of free on-street advertising for cigarettes.

Reports on the risks of passive smoking consistently give insignificant risks, and all of them are based on recall of smoking levels over decades. This is not a sound basis for any scientific conclusions on the dangers of tobacco smoke even indoors, and the idea of it being harmful outdoors is laughable.

It is for people, and not legislators, to decide whether smoking is acceptable. All that people have decided is that they don't want to pay fines. Irish tobacco revenues have increased. That shows how sensible smoking bans are as a means of discouraging smoking.

as for banning smoking in parks, if public areas such as parks contain alot of people...especially in the summer months then there is a significant risk of passive smoking. therefore to ban smoking in places such as this is, in my opinion, fully justified.

Kirstin, exactly what would that significant risk be then, in laymans terms, compared to other everyday risks?Are you seriously suggesting that a whiff of cigarette smoke in a park is dangerous to public health and justifies a ban??

Belinda, you wouldn't have to lose your companions in the middle of a converation...if they didn't smoke. I feel you don't grasp this concept. Again, the rabble and mess could be contained indoors...if they didn't smoke.There may be a minute risk to health when it comes to people smoking in outdoor areas, but there still is that risk which I for one don't want to be subject to, just because someone wants to sucum to their own filthy habit. If you are sitting outside for example, in a PUBLIC park on a hot summers day, with very little breeze and someone lights up one of their cancer sticks beside you, you are either forced to sit in their stagnant smoke, or remove yourself from thier stench...but of course, that would be normal and fair wouldn't it!?

Of course it is for the legislators to decide whether smoking is acceptable! That is their job! Smoking is not acceptable in any way, shape or form. People have had to put up with smokers' ignorance and disrespect for too long and at last something has been done about it. For someone to see this ban as anything but positive is, to me, laughable!

I don't think you are quite clear about the meaning of the word acceptable. It seems to you to have some association with your view of right and wrong. Smoking is accepted in social settings up and down the country – perhaps not publicly in Scotland – but if you are saying it is not acceptable, then why is it accepted? Not just accepted, but increasingly defended, and not only by smokers.

Do you feel that those who find it easy to accept are automatically wrong, and that you are right? If so I would be interested in why you draw this conclusion. Equally I would contest the view that it is the job of legislators to decide what is acceptable: it is their job to accommodate as many people as possible and this is not achieved by exaggerating the dangers of cigarette smoke and making out that ventilation cannot solve the problem in the case of tobacco smoke when it is regularly used to extract far more concentrated toxins than those found in tobacco smoke.

It is also the job of legislators to be a little bit pragmatic, and I might not say this if I didn't believe that cigarette smoke is really very little more than irritant. It is a legal product and so it is acceptable in terms of its revenue. Running society is an expensive business. Furthermore the European CAP subsidises tobacco growing and as far as I know UK is still a contributor. The whole of southern Europe rose up in revolt (in lobbying terms) when the health lobby raised this issue because their communities depend on it. I don't know the up-to-date position, and perhaps there are attempts to diversify. But smoking isn't going to go away and if Ireland is anything to go by the tobacco industries will only benefit from attempts to put tobacco on the wrong side of the law.

If anything disturbs you in a public park, and you don't feel up to confronting the disturbance, you move away. I would move away if somebody started playing cricket in my line of vision when I was trying to enjoy the view. No big deal. We all share the park.

My answer to you is that my approach to the smoking ban isn't based on wishful thinking: ie it would all be great if everyone didn't smoke any more, because I know that they are going to keep smoking, and that if they do it in my company that will be quite acceptable.

As you can see...airborne H5N1 Avian Flue (Bird Flue) can be captured and has been proven as such as a result of studies carried out by the Sharp Corporation Inc. Now with that sort of info how would Lord Warner or Andy Kerr MSP be able to dismiss Air Filtration as they so readily have? In a brochure directed to managers of Care Home Facilities the Scottish Executive claim that it takes hurricane force winds to remove ETS from a room, this information having been obtained from ASH the self appointed advisors to Government. This just goes to prove how much these organisations are prepared to lie in the name of social engineering.

Kirsten wrote: "There may be a minute risk to health when it comes to people smoking in outdoor areas, but there still is that risk which I for one don't want to be subject to,"

And I for one would prefer not to be subject to the minute risk that you would pose to me if you sat in a restaurant with me with a highly volatile glass of Class A Carcinogens transfusing into the air. Ethyl alcohol is a Class A Carcinogen in exactly the same class as secondary smoke. You don't see it and it doesn't have much odor, but while a cigarette puts out a bit less than a half milligram of its 7 Class A Carcinogens in total, an alcoholic drink pumps out close to 2,000 times that amount, one full gram, per hour.

If a drinking ban came out next month, I would happily stop drinking because I am not addicted. But I'm sure not long after that, we would have other posts on this very website with alocoholics moaning about not being able to continue their addiction.

Surely Cantiloper is simply making the relevant point that tobacco smoke is no more dangerous than masses of other substances that everybody encounters on a daily basis.

What aspect of the ban would you like to talk about? You've got it now! (assuming you are in Scotland). Isn't it strange seeing almost all the pub's patrons outside? And the pub empty. How silly is that?